At least once a week, I land on Irish TikTok. It’s not hard. If my phone is reading my face, it knows that I have the skin tone of a haunted Victorian doll, and therefore must hail from the sunless isle of Erin. I love it though. I’ve learned more about the Irish and Celtic customs in my two years on that scroll, then I have from 37 years of family stories. However, even with spooky season here, I was not prepared for this film.
For starters, I saw it had an actress from household favorite Derry Girls, so I immediately thought it would be a funny horror film like Shaun of the Dead or The World’s End. It’s day two. I need to stop assuming things.
The description make it sounds like a couple of inept construction crews accidently dig up a grave of a vampire and chaos ensues. Okayyyyy that’s not it at all. For one, they all know there is a large pile of cursed rocks because they’ve lived here their entire lives. For two, the main character Eugene, keeps finding skulls in a nearby farmhouse he’s renovating. I don’t want to perpetuate the myth that blue collar Irish are dumb, but they aren’t doing themselves a service. And lastly, everyone is either angry or drunk all the time. This is easy picking weather for any monster, but especially vampires.
This vampire, named Abhartach, doesn’t change people though. The rocks he is buried under is what makes you a vampire. So you just have to impale yourself on his craggy gravesite, and voila! you are now a vampire! That’s way easier than the MLM-like vampire life. However, in order to stay alive, you have to literally drain the blood from any human orifice with magical “sucking from afar” powers. These scenes were gross. The movie should just be called “Bloody Hell.”
After one of Eugene’s friends is changed into a vampire, the remaining intact friends have to figure out quickly what to do to save the town. Even though they were the ones that moved the rocks in the first place. They try all the methods with the stakes and the bullets and the beheadings and the sunlight, and nothing works. There’s a nice little twist at the end to explain why they were able to finally slay the lurking creature, but it required extra stomach-churning special effects.
I was vaguely aware of the legend this type of vampire–remember, there are many types and the least important are the sparkly ones–was based on. Luckily, my husband who is more wellversed in folklore than I will ever be, had to remind me when the film was over. If my terrible review convinces you to watch this movie, I suggest reading up on Abhartach before watching it. Also keep the captions on. I know we shouldn’t make fun of people’s accents but bloody hell, it feels like the wee Irish cubs are just making up words most days.
Scare Rating: 5 out of 10 ghosts
Lower It Up 